Scarlet / Violet are the second best-selling Pokémon games of all time

Love it or hate it, the Pokémon franchise is a juggernaut whose reach extends far beyond the gaming space. While the series has had its fair share of controversies stemming from GameFreak’s handling of the console titles, the games remain as popular as ever – with Scarlet and Violet already becoming the second highest-selling entries of all time.

As part of the company’s latest fiscal earnings report, Nintendo released updated sales figures for its hardware and software, revealing that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have now become the 2nd best-selling game(s) in the franchise – taking the second-place podium from the previous generation’s Sword/Shield with 26.79 million copies sold.

For context, this puts Scarlet / Violet at roughly 5 million copies away from the best-selling Pokémon game of all time – that being the original Red/Blue/Green – which amassed over 31.38 million sales.

Of course, the original Pokémon was a phenomenon which helped spark the franchise’s current-day popularity. Even so, Scarlet and Violet being just 5 million away from the top spot is certainly surprising, especially given the game’s tepid critical reception (and the fact that it’s only been out for just over two years).

It will be interesting to see how many units the upcoming Pokémon Z-A performs when it arrives later this year.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What did you think of Pokémon Scarlet / Violet? Do the Pokémon games have an upper ceiling of 30 million players? Will a Pokémon game ever reach 50 million copies sold? Let us know down below.

Become a Patron!